Okay i have about 300 health and about 240 stam heavy armor (56) with 2hander(64), an i get 2 shot by dragons, is this what happens with little Defense, although i did not have this problem on my duel wield char, i use an elven warhammer with fiery soul trap enchant?


why am i getting pwned by dragons everytime if i dont have a follower eating damage i cant play? if i solo i use all magika and about 5-10 potions on harder opponents, this is killing my bank from buying potions and ingrediants to make healing and stam pots.

any help would be useful on how to increase my survivability with 2handers and tactics i could use, NO magic advice, i only use restoration and that is what ever my 100 magika will let me use

i recommend you to use specially all the bonus perks for Heavy armor its really handy, the same with the 2 handed perks use the ones that gives you bonus to everything and specially the bonus to your weapon(sword, hammer , Axe)
also its slower to fight with big hammers then with small swords

Including enchanting? With 20 enchant and two perks you can make a set of fortify 2H 78%. Combine that with elemental fury shout and you should be able to grind dragons up.

If you are going to use 2H weapons keep in mind that your attacks are slower and that your primary "defense" is going to be you ability to get out of the way of your opponent's attack plus whatever armor you are wearing. Unless you get very good at blocking with your weapon, which is not going to be much use against a dragon's primary attack, i.e. shouts.

If you are dual wielding you are using 1H weapons which move much faster and allow you to do a great deal of damage in a short amount of time. A 2H weapon will deal more damage than its equivalent in the 1H family BUT in the time that it takes to do that damage you are vulnerable to being hit for a longer period of time.

I have finished the MQ and played through months of in-game time, up to level 60+, using nothing but 2H weapons, so it is doable. But until and unless you get your armor rating up - and that's not just your LA/HA skill, but the quality of what you are wearing - it can be very rough going. My characters always do Smithing in order to improve what they are wearing as much as possible.

So - what armor are you wearing? What's your armor rating when it's all equipped? And what are you using for a ranged attack? Try to do as much damage to a dragon as you can before you face it on the ground in melee. If you won't use Destruction magic then that means a bow.

Interesting that you're running out of stamina, I don't think I've ever had that problem after hitting 200 on it and that's even with purely 2H warriors. Are you going overboard on the power attacks, maybe? IIRC they drain your stamina more quickly.

Edit: also what perks have you taken in HA, 2H, etc? They can make a huge difference. I second the advice to invest perks in those skills to up your protection from armor and increase the damage your weapons deal out. Also: a Fire Damage enchant is not going to be as effective against a dragon that uses Fire shouts as an attack (which is probably, what, about half of them on average?) since they have built-in resistance to fire IIRC. For fighting dragons some other type of enchantment is going to be a better bet - damage health, absorb health, shock damage, etc.

Well, when he's on land and opens his mouth, power attack him with a warhammer. Worked for me But to survive their breath, there's really no other way than to use enchanted items, potions, or one word Become Ethereal shout

I only use 2H Greatswords against any enemy, including Dragons.

1. Stay away from their mouths, attack from the side or back
2. I know you did not want a magic advice, but if your killing dragons, then you know Shouts. Get the Marked for Death Shout and use that.
3. Use followers to soften up the dragons or distract them while you attack from the side or the rear.
4. Perk up your damage in your weapon skill.
5. Improve your weapons so they do more damage, Enchant them, Absorb Health is about the best one as it heals you and harms them.

Good point. This is the benefit of elemental fury; your hammer will be as fast a a 1H sword so you can start with one power attack and then switch to regular attacks to keep the dragon constantly off guard.

what level are you and what difficulty are you playing? and it can be very painful if you just made this "leveljump" such that you get the next difficulty of enemies

my first character was 2h sword (normal difficulty), no enchanting, no smithing, i think i did not even decide on a special weapon type in the perk tree - i never had severe problems. if you are using a warhammer, you should be aware that your attacks are very slow and the dragon has plenty of time to barbecue you as ccna said, do not stand in front of it. marked for death works very nice, if you like it very simple

€: i usually powerattacked them to death and i am pretty sure that i did not have more than 250 stamina. no idea anymore how many life i had.

Elemental fury shout is your best friend as a 2 hander character. (but you have to use a non enchanted weapon - which i use most the time anyway, just carry 1 extra enchanted weapon for hard boss guys sometimes)

If you get all 3 shout words for elemental fury, you can kick some serious ass with a 2 handed weapon. Also make sure you get the perks that increase 2 hander damage, and the one where you can hit multiple targets is pretty badass. Though i found the master perk for 1 handed and 2 handed as basically useless.
Also make sure you get all the heavy armor perks as well.
I also like to use two handed swords over the hammers because they are much faster, and you can block quick with them.

Oh yeah, the block skill is still really important for 2 handed characters. Especially if you get the perk that goes in slow motion on power attacks (it glitches out on guys who are dual wielding when they power attack you can go in slow mo for like 2 minutes sometimes)
and if you get the perk that makes it so you move full speed while blocking, if you have that coupled with the slow mo perk, then you are basically unstoppable, every time a dragon or any enemy power attacks, you hold block, and run around them while still holding block in slow motion and then hit them a bunch from behind.

Also doing the shield bash with a 2 hander is still very effective as well (technically not shield bash but you know what i mean)

doing all that, i have no problem on master difficulty with my 2 handed warriors that dont use magic.

okay

I use a mix of orc and steel plate armor with elven warhammer

53 smithing - no perks in this ATM waiting for it to get higher (which could be my problem, but i am going to wear orc armor as my highest, since i am an orc char.
50 heavy armor - mix of orc and steel plate armor
63 2hander - main damage dealer (elven warhammer ATM)
59 archery - sneak attacks mostly and range for dragons
61 alchemy - stam and healing potions

armor rating is at 156 on my way to orc stronghold to steal me full orc armor

these are my main skills i use enchanting is at 63 so far with no perks waiting to get 100 for duel enchants, off this what am i svcking at? lol be nice, just tried to kill another dragon solo and he fuc*ing ate my as*, he hit me once brought me close to no health and than ate me? my main concern is why am i getting hit so hard?

Yeah, and it's what really kills me (literally!) especially when I start a new character and am back down to minimal stamina and no perks or skill advantages. I have a tendency to start mashing those buttons down in the heat of a fight, particularly with 2H if I'm coming off a 1H character, because the response time feels (and probably is) so slow all of a sudden.

You can take the Orcish with a 50 in Smithing so you've already gotten high enough for that - but the problem I see here is that by not having taken any perks at all yet, you are still going to need to take Steel and Dwarven perks first. Which means three level-ups before Orcish becomes available and you get the max possible improvement on your Orcish armor, once you have it. And that's if you only go up that side of the tree, which shuts you out of the perks for the gear you are currently using (Elven and Advanced).


But what perks have you taken in these skills? For instance you've got an armor rating of 156, which - if I am doing the math right - only gives you about a 30% reduction in damage taken from attacks assuming you are wearing four pieces. You could improve the amount of protection you get from your existing set by taking the first perk in the HA tree. Take one "rank" in that perk and you increase your protection by 20%, take all five ranks and you double the protection that you get.

And a full set of Orcish armor is not going to help you much if you don't have the Matching Set perk, since there is very little difference in protection between items in the Orcish set and those in the Steel Plate set. And without the Orcish Smithing perk you won't get any special advantages when you improve them either.

Same thing with weapons, an Elven warhammer gives you 23 base damage, you don't have the perk to smith it past - what, Superior? That's not much of an increase in damage output IIRC. Plus that thing swings slowly meaning you get fewer hits in, but with the appropriate perks in 2H you could be dealing more damage with each hit, using less stamina, getting a chance to land critical hits that end a fight, etc.